Assessing the effects of external environmental factors in public spaces on mental health and well being

Assessing the effects of external environmental factors in public spaces on mental health and well being Many environmental issues arise due to urbanization, such as increased pollution and city densification. World health organizations and sustainable development have recently focused on mental health as a rising concern. As builders and architects, it is our responsibility to identify the impact of the environment on the user and to adjust our surroundings in a healthy and restorative manner. This research looked at restorative environments and how they affect people's emotions and well-being. The relationship between individual and environmental characteristics is investigated in this study. A restorative environment may reduce stress and mental fatigue while also improving attention. The environment can influence a person's views, attitude, and performance. This impact might be either negative or positive. Fear, anger, anxiety, and sadness are frequent emotions that the environment may induce and increase. This study evaluated respondents' restorativeness using virtual reality and online videos. This research was a collaborative effort to piece together new methodologies and procedures and explain the relationship between built environment characteristics and restorativeness to comprehensively understand new methods for analyzing and assessing environmental interactions and how they interact with one another. The study concentrated on attention restoration and stress recovery theory. Five physical and perceptual restorative components were separated and simulated based on these two theories. These architectural spaces stressed restorative factors of complexity and coherence. This study used online videos and VR headsets to test respondents' perceived restorativeness of the virtual environment using eight models of varying coherence and complexity based on built environment attributes. Three restorative variables were extracted from the expected five restorative components: fascination, coherence, and complexity. Statistical analysis was used to investigate restorativeness and emotions; as a result, increasing each restorative component and overall restoratives were associated with positive emotions. According to a fixed effect model regression, three attributes of building placement, crowdedness, and surface material significantly impacted perceived restorativeness. The height of the building and the style of architecture had minimal influence. Most restorative environment research has concentrated on natural settings, stress, and mental health. This research looked at restorativeness in built environments, particularly in metropolitan regions. Urban planners and legislators might use the study's findings to make communities and public spaces more pleasant and restorative. Keywords: mental health, well-being, sustainable cities and communities, restorative environments, environmental psychology